Let’s talk about St. Senan’s Hospital

By Dan Walsh

A panel exhibition discussion titled Walls of Containment takes place in the Presentation Arts Centre, Enniscorthy, on Friday at 7.30pm. It is a free event, all are welcome, but booking is required.

The subject for discussion is the immense building work involved in the building of asylums across the island of Ireland, the state’s ability to deliver these structures, the function of the buildings, the use of the structures then, and now, and their subsequent dereliction and demise.

Featured are artist David Killeen, author Patrick Quinlan, and Research Fellow in the School of Philosophy at UCD Dervla McManus and special guests GKMP Architects who are currently redeveloping St. Senan’s Hospital in Enniscorthy.

This panel discussion is in response to the current exhibition of photography by David Killeen, which documents twenty-one psychiatric hospitals across the Republic of Ireland. Constructed between 1814 and 1922, they represent one of the largest public programmes ever undertaken in Ireland.

Big focus will be on St. Senan’s Hospital where the first patients arrived in April 1868, and admissions ceased in February 2011. Closure came in 2013.

This exhibition is a conversation about the immense building work involved in the building of the ‘asylums’.

This exhibition and panel discussion is part of the First Fortnight, the annual Mental Health Arts and Culture Festival.